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May 26, 2007
Liberal Elitist Schickel Denounces Bloggers For Being Judgmental Commoners
If you could use a good laugh, check out Richard Schickel's pompous denunciation of bloggers from atop his crumbling throne at La Times. As far as I can tell, Schickel is completely on the level as he writes:
Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). […]
Next we commoners will be using Grey Poupon! Like many liberal elitists who are so full of "nuance" it has turned their eyes brown, Schickel condemns us for being judgmental:
Very often, in the best reviews, opinion is conveyed without a judgmental word being spoken, because the review's highest business is to initiate intelligent dialogue about the work in question, beginning a discussion that, in some cases, will persist down the years, even down the centuries.
But it doesn't take centuries for Schickel to get back to judging us commoners as unfit to form our own opinions, sticking his pointy nose in the air as he sniffs that a lot of reviewing is "hack work," consisting of "spray-painted opinions," "already democratic enough, thanks much" and "more than ready for the guy from car parts" — a dig at a blogger who used to work for a car parts manufacturer.
Soon he is claiming that blogging "doesn't take much time" (I wish) and comparing it to finger-painting. The opinions of those outside the establishment citadel are "mere yammering," and a "democratic literary landscape" is "truly a wasteland, without standards, without maps, without oases of intelligence or delight."
Where elitist snoots see an oasis of intelligence or delight, others see that a horse has been by, and it's time to get out the shovel.
On a tip from Nanc.
Posted by Van Helsing at May 26, 2007 10:27 AM
Comments
Heh heh...obviously trying to set his "subjects" straight concerning that bunch of Right-wing "inferiors" on the blogosphere and talk radio, in an angry attempt to stop all those subscriptions from being cancelled. Yeah, Schickel, that's the way to get people on your team- insults and sneering. Lotsa luck, pal...
Posted by: Toa at May 26, 2007 11:37 AM
Newspapers? What are newspapers?
Posted by: MoleOnABull at May 26, 2007 8:20 PM
Newspapers? What are newspapers?
Today newspapers are simply fossilized opinions, perhaps good for future scholars, but for the most part yesterday's news.
Posted by: James F McEnanly at May 26, 2007 9:51 PM
We'll always need newspapers. Otherwise we would have nothing with which to start the wood stove in the morning, or line the gerbil cage, or polish mirrors.
That's just a commoner's opinion, of course.
Posted by: Paul Moore at May 27, 2007 5:18 AM
Is that Schickel or Schickelgruber?
Posted by: BobG at May 27, 2007 7:45 AM
Well said, BobG. Heil, Schickelgruber! (As Ian Kershaw noted in his great two-volume biography of Herr Adolf, the biggest favor his grandfather performed for him was to change the family name to "Hitler," meaning "small [land]holder," well before Der Fuhrer was born).
And here's yet another liberal who finds there is "too much democracy" in the world today (read: too much conservative thought out there, especially in talk radio and the blogosphere). Shut down those venues and the only things you'll ever hear are the voices of the Stalinists, preaching unending socialism, "one-world" government (John F'in Kerry, anyone?), primitive lifestyles to "save the planet" (not including the elites, of course), and on and on, ad nauseum.
Posted by: jc14 at May 27, 2007 8:05 AM
